HumiBlog.com

I’m watching the Fox News Channel and this story is just in. Apparently Castro is undergoing intestinal Surgery and has for the first time in 47 years relinquished power to his brother until he recovers. Well, word has it that even Hugo Chavez, Venezuela’s emerging Castro wannabe, is worried about Castro’s health. Of course for him, if Castro goes, so do his dreams of a new Venezuelan dictatorship.

For us, a free Cuba would mean an end to the embargo and the return of Cuban tobacco to the US. An initial surge in demand would mean that habanos quality would probably go to the dogs for a while, with a huge spike in prices. A thought that American aficionados would prefer to the current prohibition.

So, shall we stock up on habanos just yet? Well, that’s always a good idea. But the point is that relinquishing power to his brother is a very risky move that Castro is only willing to make in exceptional circumstances. According to experts, if his brother were to remain in power for more than a couple of months, no doubt a revolution would take place shortly thereafter that would overthrow the dictatorship and establish democracy.

Well, maybe my habanos collection will be worth a lot of money in the near future… uhhh… if I don’t get to them first!

Alright, this is sweet! Telefonica has finally installed my line and not a moment too soon. I feel like I have been so disconnected from the world that I was starting to go through Internet withdrawals. What does it mean when you become irrational and get chills at the thought of having to wait longer to get hooked up?

At any rate, it has been a cool past few weeks. As some of you might know, Spain just comes to life in the summer months. I mean, the bullfighting season starts, all kinds of summer festivals are held everywhere, and probably the wildest summer celebration of all takes place: the San Fermines of Pamplona—think about 7 days of drinking, concerts, street competitions, and of course… the running of the bulls in the streets.

I would be a bad lier if I denied that almost two days after arriving in Spain my wife and I took off for Pamplona. No… I didn’t actually run with the bulls… but we did attend the wildest, most interesting, and amusing bullfight at the historic Pamplona Plaza de Toros. How wild? Well, let’s just say that we didn’t only drink the local wine at the stands. By the time it was all over, we were sporting the wine all over our clothes. Between bulls and matadors, the local bands kept us dancing to classic spanish tunes. We had great food, great wine and great conversation with the locals.

I’ve also had the chance to observe the cigar culture here, and I must say it’s quite unique. Of course, smoking in Spain isn’t what it is in the US, or even the rest of Europe. I already paid a visit to my local “estanco”, as they call tobacco shops… as for the prices… well, just about the best there is outside of Cuba.

I only have five minutes left at this internet cafe, so I have to make this short and sweet. Basically, for the past month I’ve been busy relocating to yet another great cigar city: Madrid, Spain.

Well, you can’t expect me to travel around europe and not get the fever to move to another country. At any rate, I am now a resident of Spain and looking forward to exploring the cigar culture in this country.

Now, it takes over four weeks to get a phone line installed in this place, and a few more weeks for internet access. I am hoping to have it all up and running this week and get back into the cigar reviews and talk, which I have sorely missed since I made the perilous voyage.

To all who have kindly emailed humiblog in the past weeks, I appologize for the delay in reponses. Unless the Spanish Telecom company messes up, I hope to be back and answering emails by the end of the week.

Cheers to all and thanks for your encourgements.